Analysis of ACA shows Obama's duplicity

For the past 34 years, I have worked primarily as a health insurance agent.

While I was waiting for the Affordable Care Act exchanges to be functional, I was able to go around the exchanges and go directly to the two insurers who are on the individual medical exchanges in Ross County. I got rates for my wife Marianna, 60, and my son Zach, 30.

The two insurers are Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Medical Mutual of Ohio. There is a third company, Molina; but Molina really works with Medicaid-eligible people and has only one Ross County primary care physician in its network.

Those will be the only insurers on the exchange in Ross County. You can verify which companies are available by going to healthcare.gov.

Marianna has a $1,000 deductible plan with a maximum out-of-pocket expense of $3,125 and the current premium is $384 per month. With Anthem's ACA plans, the closest equivalent plan has a deductible of $1,250 and maximum out-of-pocket expense of $4,500 and the premium will be $1,047.82 per month.

Built into the premium are three new federal taxes totaling $59.18 per month. Medical Mutual's premium is "better" - a $1,000 deductible plan with a $5,000 out-of-pocket expense is $917.56. Medical Mutual did not break out the new tax cost in the illustration, but it would be just slightly lower. Because we do not qualify for any federal financial support - and indeed, our taxes will be supporting those who do - we have to pay the full premium.

Zach currently has a $2,500 deductible plan that pays 100 percent after the deductible and the current premium is $111.28. Anthem's closest equivalent ACA-plan is a $2,500 deducible with a maximum out of pocket of $4,000 at $297.56 per month. With Medical Mutual, the closest is a $2,000 deductible that pays 100 percent after the deductible at $364.51 per month.

Zach will qualify for federal support, so I, all other taxpayers, federal imaginary money printers, and the Chinese who loan us the money will be paying a substantial portion of his health insurance premium over to his insurer. Many millions of people will qualify for federal money at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars a year. It is estimated that as much as 75 percent of individuals in Ross County will qualify for federal payments to their insurers.

Let me make this very clear: Regardless of what has been said, my wife, my son, and anyone else on individual medical plans will lose their current coverage and will be forced to go to a much higher-premium ACA plan available in their county.

Obama stated in 2009: "First of all, if you've got health insurance, you like your doctor, you like your plan - you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan. Nobody is talking about taking that away from you."

In actuality, all people who will be buying individual medical coverage will not be able to keep their plan. And many people will not be able to keep their doctors and hospitals without paying a whole lot more out of pocket. As an example: With Anthem in our part of the state, there are no first-tier hospitals - that includes Adena - and every doctor in the Adena Medical Group, about half the doctors, will not be first-tier.

Except in an emergency, individuals who are on Anthem will have to go 50-plus miles to Columbus to access either the Mt. Carmel Health System or Nationwide Children's Hospital. All other Columbus-area hospitals and medical practices owned by these other systems are not on the first tier and will cost double out of pocket.

Obama lied, our health plans died.

Jerry F. Phillips

Chillicothe

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Analysis of ACA shows Obama's duplicity

For the past 34 years, I have worked primarily as a health insurance agent.